Firebreak

by Nicole Kornher-Stace

  “Do I look like a fucking dead actor to you?”

  We’re both still staring at the wall screen in profound horror. Like the not-Mal might crawl out of it and wear me like a glove.

  Giving Jessa the go-ahead to play the rest of whatever’s on this video is, at the moment, a bridge just the tiniest bit too far. “I don’t even talk like that! In store for you? When have I said that?” I can’t shake the thought that if I touched the not-me thing on the arm, its skin would feel like picking up a half-dead earthworm off the sidewalk.

  “They must’ve used footage from your video, the one you’re in, but…” Jessa messes her hands through her hair. “But that wouldn’t be enough. They must have mined surveillance feeds from the hotel. Something. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  I look at her. Then I look back at the screen. The desire to dig it out of the wall and pitch it out the window is a physical itch in the muscles of my shoulders and the backs of my hands. But I have to know. “Okay,” I tell her. “Play the rest.”

  The not-me beams out from within. It’s weirdly backlit, like a halo dialed up too high. “I’ve been in negotiations with Stellaxis Innovations, and I can’t even tell you how super excited I am to share this with you. Introducing the newest addition to the upcoming summer ’34 line of exclusive Stellaxis StelTech SecOps merchandise… me!”

  Cut to a CG animation of an action figure that looks like Nycorix in some kind of pseudomilitary pseudopunk poser getup: cargo pants, combat boots, weird distressed t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off that reads RESIST in stencil font. The shirt is torn down the front to show my cleavage, because of course it is.

  This cuts to a reenactment of the mech fight scene from my first video, except with 06 and 22 action figures subbed in for the real thing, and the Nycorix action figure standing back waving a no-shit anti-Stellaxis protest sign. Then she throws that down, rips off the RESIST shirt to reveal a black tank top, draws a pistol from fuck knows where, and runs to join the battle.

  At the last second she turns to address the audience over one shoulder. “Come fight the good fight with me.”

  “Turn it off.”

  Jessa pauses it. Nycorix looks, sickeningly, like somewhere inside the next ten frames of animation she’s going to wink.

  “No. Off.”

  Jessa gestures, and the screen goes dark.

  We stare at it for long seconds past when the image has faded to nothing. When Stellaxis finally made their move, whatever I expected it to be, it wasn’t this.

  “That—can they do that?”

  I shake my head. “They’re doing it.” The shock isn’t wearing off. More like it’s turning transparent, and I can see my thought processes beneath. “They couldn’t make me disappear because that would be essentially proving I’ve been right about them all along. So they sidestepped my insurance policy.”

  “They stole you. They can’t just…” Jessa trails off, outraged. Her fists clench and unclench at her sides. “They added you to the brand.”

  Intellectual property, I think. A nervous laugh rips out of me. You’re like 22 now. Isn’t that what you always wanted?

  It’s too surreal. I can’t parse it. I need time.

  But I don’t have time. The realization takes me like a brick upside the head. Time is exactly what I’m out of.

  “I have to get out of here,” I say. “I have to hide. People are going to believe that shit. That I sold out. That I lost them their water line to make a fucking profit.”

  “They can’t believe that. They know you.”

  “Who? Who knows me? You know me. The people in this room know me.” I fling one hand toward the window. “You saw the crowd out there yesterday. What happens when they realize they have a much softer target to aim at than Stellaxis? That’s what they want,” I continue, understanding even as I say it. At the very least they discredit me. Utterly. If they’re lucky, I go away for real, forever. “They want old town to eat me alive and save them the trouble. Where did you see this?”

  Jessa’s eyes flicker as she scrolls. “It was a news alert. One of Stellaxis’s special announcements.”

  “Then everyone got it,” I whisper. “Everyone saw.”

  “Jesus.” Jessa’s hand is over her mouth again. The mannerism seems to have suddenly appeared on her, the way in a movie you wake up from a shock and find your hair has turned white. “You need a disguise.”

  She rummages in her swag stash and emerges with a pair of oversize sunglasses. Little cartoon 21s decorating chunky black frames. I recognize them as the limited ones they released when 21 died a few months ago. Her date of death is on there too: October 26, 2133. Killed in action, like they always say. But now I can’t help but wonder whether 21 did some time meeting with mysterious occupational hazards before her flare went up too.

  Jessa fits them onto my face, then steps back. “It’s not enough. Put on a hat. Borrow somebody else’s coat. I’ll talk to them. Then get out of here and go someplace quiet while I find the others and spread the word, make sure everyone knows that video is fake as shit and you would never.”

  Most of the coats are out of the room with their owners, but Jessa rummages in the back of the storage closet and comes out with an old camo-print jacket. She sniffs it, makes a face. “I don’t even know whose this was. Here.” She shoves it at me, releasing an incongruous lavender scent.

  The irony of the camouflage is not lost on me, but it looks a lot different from my usual coat. I shrug it on, then freeze, one hand reaching out habitually for my backpack.

  “Leave it,” Jessa says. “You’ll be back soon. Just go.”

  I fish the taser out of my coat anyway and pocket it in the borrowed one.

  “Go up to the garden,” Jessa says. “I’ll meet you in a few hours. Actually. Wait.”

  I turn. Jessa’s holding one of Allie’s lipsticks. I raise an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

  “You want to not look like you? Come here.”

  She lipsticks me, then does something with my hair that hurts my scalp. Then she finds somebody’s knit winter hat and pulls it down onto my head. “All right, total stranger,” she says, giving me a sad little shake. “I’ll see you soon.”

  The door bangs open, and Talya comes in, Tegan on her heels. “You sellout fuck,” Talya says. “I knew you were full of shit. But this is like a whole other level.”

  My hand slides into my taser pocket, but Jessa is already stepping between Talya and me. She’s several inches shorter than Talya, but at this moment I’m pretty sure she’s keyed up enough to face down a tank. She stares up into Talya’s face with angelic calm. “Relax,” she breathes.

  “Relax. Fucking relax? That fucking asshole cost me my water! And now she’s working with them?”

  “It’s a fake,” I say. “That’s not me. They locked out my implant and put this video up instead.”

  “Oh come on. You expect us to believe—”

  “Because they couldn’t just lock you up,” Tegan says, cutting her off.

  “Or kill me.”

  “Or kill you. Holy shit. They’re trying to erase you instead.”

  “Erase and replace,” Jessa adds. “Just like the coffee shop.”

  Tegan levels their gaze at me. “You swear you weren’t part of this?”

  “I swear. I didn’t know they were going to take the water lines either. I thought if anything, they’d kill my game account, lock out my lenses. Worst-case scenario, grab me off the street.” I shake my head. “Not this.”

  Tegan eyes me calculatingly, then nods. “Shit. I believe you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You must have really pissed them off.”

  I essay a lopsided grin. “I hope so.”

  Talya looks me up and down. “You’re getting my water back.”

  “We’re going to get everyone’s water back,” I say, investing my voice with a confidence I don’t quite feel. “Together.”

  Then Talya notices the outfit. “What are you doing
in all that?”

  “Protection,” Jessa says. “You’re not the only ones who won’t believe her at first.”

  “Or ever,” I say.

  “It’s some elaborate fuckery,” Jessa says. “People are going to fall hard for this. And they’re not going to be happy.”

  “Of course they won’t be happy,” Talya says. “We’re all going to die if we don’t get—”

  “Our water back,” Jessa says. “We know. But you have to understand we have to hold this protest. We can’t back down. We have to stand with Mal. If they see her there with us, they’ll know she’s not playing for the company team, no matter how many commercials they run. I mean. You saw it. Having her throw away her protest sign and the world’s most on-the-nose shirt? How fucking unsubtle can you be?”

  Talya chews this over. “I don’t like it,” she says eventually.

  “There’s nothing to fucking like about it,” Jessa replies. “But if we—”

  “So hold up.” Tegan is eyeing me differently now. “What’s trying to disappear going to solve? If you want people to see you’re still here, still resisting, they have to see you here. Resisting. Not hiding somewhere buried under whatever the fuck that all is.”

  “They’re going to kill her,” Jessa says. “They’re going to see that video and they’re going to come here and they’re going to—”

  “No,” Tegan says. “They’re not. I just put out a call to the others, told them what happened. What really happened. They’re coming up here. We’re going to walk downstairs together. All of us.”

  “No,” I say.

  Tegan looks at me. “What?”

  “I can’t do that. I can’t put other people at risk because of me.” No worse than I have already. “The water line— I never meant—”

  “Dude,” Jessa says. “We know.”

  Tegan nods. Talya at least doesn’t disagree.

  “I—” I begin, and then the door opens again, and in come Allie and Jackson and Keisha and Ryan and Suresh. As well as a solid dozen people I don’t know. They’re carrying something. Signs. Protest signs. One of them has a giant water droplet drawn on it in blue marker. I can’t make out the words. They cram in and in until we’re all stepping on one another’s feet.

  “These guys came to help,” Jackson says, hooking a thumb over a shoulder in explanation. “They’ve seen you stream the game, and they know you wouldn’t do, like, a tenth of that shit.”

  “I saw Nycorix start grinning like that,” one of them pipes up, “I knew they got to you. I thought they had you locked up somewhere with a camera in your face. Under duress, you know?”

  “Bullshit,” Keisha says. “That was some bottom-shelf trash CGI.” It’s a blatant lie, but one that’s meant to cheer me up. I try to let it. “Can’t a company that owns half of everything come up with better animation?”

  “Okay, but.” Allie loops her pointer finger in my direction, a midair figure eight that starts at my feet and cups the top of my head. “I have to ask.”

  Right. I shuck off the jacket and stuff onto my bunk and wipe the lipstick off on my sleeve. Then I remember the taser and retrieve it. I put it in the pocket of my own coat, then put that on, followed by my backpack. Someone pushes a sign into my hands. A marker drawing of a water line, except in reverse, and weird: the people in line are filling the ration barrels through IVs in their arms. The tubes going into the barrel run red with blood, but what the barrel is packed with is dollar signs painted in gold.

  It’s all a little too cluttered for a decent protest sign, but it illustrates which side I’m on, and really that’s all I need.

  “Hard to make the case that you’re a corporate sellout when you’re down there with a sign telling Stellaxis to go fuck themselves,” Keisha says. “Everybody recording?”

  Everybody is. Everybody but me.

  Jessa nudges me. “Ready?”

  As much as I’m going to be. I follow them out of the room and into the hall.

  * * *

  THEY ARRANGE THEMSELVES around me with extras in front and behind, and we walk down all six flights of stairs together. Our hall is practically empty. Whether they’ve all gone to Comforts of Home to beg for water or they’ve just cleared out so nobody thinks to associate them with me, I don’t know. But only a few people yell at us, and that seems to be mostly because we’re taking up the entire hall.

  Keisha walks backward in front of me, recording. She doesn’t stream the game or even play it as far as I’m aware. The only time I ever hear her discuss it is in the context of how the module Jessa and I play is “thinly veiled war propaganda.” But apparently this whole time she’s secretly been a mod of one of the indie news blogs that helped blow up my videos, and she opens up a live feed there.

  Or, I realize, maybe it’s never been secret at all. Maybe I was just keeping to myself too much to know. It’s not like I go around asking people about their day.

  Four years I’ve lived with these people, and I know virtually nothing about them. We’ve been background extras in one another’s lives at best. Side-quest NPCs. And yet here they are, walking shoulder to shoulder with me. Putting their asses on the line for me.

  Or no. That’s not even right. Not for me. With me. It’s so strange I can’t even fully process it. It strikes my mind and glances off. Would I have done the same for them? I’d like to think so. But after all these years of being a good little customer-citizen, it’s honestly anybody’s guess.

  “Here’s the real Mallory,” Keisha’s yelling. “The real Nycorix. She posted a video about the SecOps program, and Stellaxis didn’t like that. They didn’t like it at all. So they tried to shut her up. They killed our water lines, every building in old town, gone, to get her to stop, to make sure none of us got the same idea. She said fine, you want to bring other people into this? Let’s bring other people into this. She planned a protest so everybody would know about the corruption and greed and lies we’re living with every day. So they locked out her implant and invented a version of her they could control. That puppet shit you saw? Remember whose channel you saw that on! Are you really going to believe the same people who cut off our water? Believe us instead—believe that Mal would never sell out to these greedy fucks—and you hit them where it hurts. There’s some shady shit going on here, no question, but remember: you want the real Nycorix, the real Mal, the real truth, you follow the feeds coming out of old town, live, unedited, untouched, and you see for yourself what’s what.”

  She goes on like this the whole way down all six flights of stairs to the lobby. Or she would have, except they catch on and lock her out too before she hits the fourth-floor landing. So Tegan takes over, streaming on the same site. I mean, I knew they didn’t like the company, but I didn’t know about this.

  “These people control everything,” they say, their gaze panning from me to Jessa to the crowd around us, holding protest signs. When I glance around, there seem to be more people now than we left with. Our little crowd isn’t so little now. It stretches back down the hall, trailing behind us like a banner. “Stellaxis and Greenleaf, owning our food and our water, our power and our communications. What next? Our air? What does that leave for us? What do we get to control? Nothing! Nothing except what we take back for ourselves. Thanks to the Neutralities Accord, we can’t grow our own food unless it’s Greenleaf Industries seeds and Stellaxis Innovations water. They don’t let us drink unless we’re begging for their rations or we’re paying a dollar an ounce at the company stores. Every single person in old town is clinically dehydrated, and you better believe we’re not taking as many showers and doing as much laundry and flushing the toilets as often as we should. Poor hygiene spreads disease, but do they care? I say to you they do the fuck not. They love it because then we have to pay four hundred dollars to so much as show our faces at a walk-in clinic! A company clinic! Is that any kind of fucking way to live?”

  “I thought the protest was Saturday,” Talya mutters behind me.

  B
ut Tegan hears her. “The protest is Saturday,” they shout. “And every day before that, and every day after, until we get our goddamn fucking human rights. And then—”

  That’s when they cut Tegan off too. Suresh steps in, but then the whole crowd stops moving. We’re at the landing between the lobby and the second floor, and whoever’s in front stops dead on the stairs near the door, backing all of us up behind them. All kinds of thoughts race through my head, none of them good. Guards blocking the exit to the lobby so they can shoot us when they let us through. Guards blocking the exit to the lobby because they’ve already chucked something into the stairwell, and my part of the crowd hasn’t happened on it yet. Resonance grenades. Hallucinogen bursts. Drones. I listen for the telltale sounds of each of these but can’t make them out over the crowd.

  Which has only gotten bigger. I’m on the landing, and it’s solid-packed people the whole way down the flight of stairs between me and the door. It’s loud and uncomfortable and smells like the sour laundry and sweat and breath of many dozens of borderline-malnourished and chronically dehydrated humans.

  We must have gathered bystanders from each hall, a few here, a few there, the whole way down. I can’t really blame them. It’s probably not too clear at a glance what the fuck is going on here, and they’re sticking around until they figure it out. Certainly they seem more curious to check out the drama than fired up to join any kind of half-assed cause. Already Keisha’s and Tegan’s speeches have sent some of them scurrying back up the stairs at top speed. Covering themselves from the inevitable facial recognition sweep that’s going to get us all flagged and tagged if this escalates much further, and very possibly even if it doesn’t.

  “No matter what, everybody keep recording,” Tegan yells. “What’s going on down there?”

  There are windows in each stairwell just in front of the door. Whatever’s transfixing the people in front, it’s out one of these windows. Others are pushing down the stairs to see, but before this ends in full-on disaster, somebody yells up, in a tone almost like awe, “It’s raining.”